I’m getting bored of this quarter, and now I just wish it would end. Things don’t seem to be working out very well for me at the time being. The “proof” of the min-max “theorem” is flawed to the point that the result is probably not true. I suppose that’s the way research goes. As Julia Robinson put it, “Monday: tried to prove theorem, Tuesday: tried to prove theorem, Wednesday: tried to prove theorem, Thursday: tried to prove theorem, Friday: theorem false.” Anyway, it’s discouraging.

Once again, I’m having computer troubles. Yesterday, my computer kept shutting down when I was using it with no warninig at all. I think the CPU was getting too hot. After that happened a few times, my internet access disappeared, and, as far as I know, it’s still gone. What would I do without the wireless network in CCS?

For once, I had an opportunity to do something moderately interesting in tuning and temperament. He said that 53 fifths make a pretty good octave, but he couldn’t remember which other numbers were also good. Well, I wasn’t about to pass up that opportunity to solve a problem, so I worked out a couple terms of the continued fraction of log(2)/log(3/2) and figured out that 306 fifths and especially 665 fifths are also good octaves. I showed my work to him after class, and he at least appeared to be interested.

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About Simon

Hi. I'm Simon Rubinstein-Salzedo. I'm a mathematics postdoc at Dartmouth College. I'm also a musician; I play piano and cello, and I also sometimes compose music and study musicology. I also like to play chess and write calligraphy. This blog is a catalogue of some of my thoughts. I write them down so that I understand them better. But sometimes other people find them interesting as well, so I happily share them with my small corner of the world.